Anyway, while many automata of a certain age do tend to be kind of creepy, there are others that aren’t quite so bad. In fact, they come in all shapes and sizes, and some of them can be quite pretty as well as fascinating.

A great place to see that as well as to learn about automata is at the Morris Museum in Morristown, NJ. That’s because Murtogh Guinness, of Guinness beer fame, was an avid collector of automata and their close relatives, mechanical musical instruments. He left his entire collection of more than 700 gadgets to the Mooris Museum.